


Books Are(n't) For Setting Fires

by pipsiev2



Series: Books Are For Discovering Yourself [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Asexual Character, Asexual Minho, First Meetings, Gen, Humor, Library, Panromantic Minho, Polysexual Jisung, SO, almost accidental arson, my friend group could probably end up doing this by accident, not really that important other than they're whipped, this seems like crack but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 15:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15560493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipsiev2/pseuds/pipsiev2
Summary: So, that being said, it comes as a surprise to everyone, including Jisung and Jeongin, when Minho does something that radiates full chaotic energy that no one really knows that he possesses.Such as, for example, almost accidentally setting the library on fire.





	1. Minho why

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place before Books Are For Crying, like, before Minho and Hyunjin even _know_ each other, so Hyunjin isn't out yet.
> 
> again, idk any other education system other than american (and slightly greek), so this is americanized grades:  
>  **Jeongin:** 8th grade  
>  **Hyunjin:** freshman  
>  **Jisung:** freshman  
>  **Minho:** sophomore

Minho wasn’t a purposefully chaotic person, believe it or not. Sure, _maybe_ he gets a bit too aggressive without realizing it, but his aggression never lead to chaos, surprisingly. He doesn’t give off the naturally excitable chaotic energy that Jisung does, or the sly, sneaky, pent up chaotic energy that Jeongin does, but rather gives off a cool, collected and mature asshole sort of energy.

 

The reason why he gives off that sort of energy might have something to do with the fact that Jisung and Jeongin are younger than him, and he feels a need to be the adult around them (Jeongin laughed when he first told him that, not realizing that Minho was being serious until he failed to hear Minho join in), or because he just has a resting bitch face that makes everyone think he’s an asshole (not that people didn’t think that _anyway_ , since he had tendencies to be too strong during playful violence and be too sharp with his words when teasing, according to Jisung).

 

So, that being said, it comes as a surprise to everyone, including Jisung and Jeongin, when Minho does something that radiates full chaotic energy that no one really knows that he possesses.

 

Such as, for example, almost accidentally setting the library on fire.

 

“Dude, what the _fuck_ .” He turns to see the cute library worker that he had noticed when he walked in staring at the fire with something akin to a mixture of shock, fear, and pure _awe_.

 

Minho turns back when he hears Jeongin’s shriek, and yells, “It wasn’t me, I swear!” at the guy as he grabs his jacket to hit the flames with.

 

Which, in Minho’s defence, wasn’t _completely_ a lie. True, it was _his_ book on fire, and true, _he_ was the one who put the match sticks on the table while trying to find a pen in his bag ( _Why do you even_ have _matchsticks in your bag?_ Hyunjin will ask him days later, to which Minho replies with, “You never know when you have to frame someone for arson,” with a cheeky wink that earns him a slap to the back of his head), _but_ , Jeongin and Jisung were the ones playing around with them to see if they could light it using the table, _sooooooooooooo-_

 

But, yeah, it _wasn’t_ , technically, Minho’s fault, despite him being the one to provide what could probably be used as legal evidence against him, and the fact that _oh no is the book falling it looks like the book is falling shit-_

 

Minho lunges at the book to push it back onto the table, burning his hand in the process (but also feeling _extremely_ relieved as the book looked well on its way to falling into a bookshelf, which would’ve been worse because this was a _library_ and the entire place is _flammable_ ).

 

The library worker didn’t seem to care about the fact that he could’ve possibly almost died, or about Minho’s burned, bleeding hand, and he glares at Minho before giving an exaggerated sigh.

“Sorry, Hyunjinie!” Minho pauses in his frantic attempt to stop the fire (is that blood on his jacket?) and as he turns towards Jeongin he can see Jisung do the same. “I swear they usually don't cause this much trouble, ask Woojinie!”  
  
“Mhm,” the worker - Hyunjin - says as he takes another onceover of Minho and Jisung, “give me a sec to go grab the fire extinguisher before your friend’s jacket, along with _other, more important_ things, catches on fire and _then_ we’ll talk, Jeongin.” The guy turns and walks away and immediately Jisung’s onto their youngest.

 

“How on _earth_ do you know that guy?” Jisung sounds like he’s trying to be angry, but with the way his eyes are wide as saucers and he sounds just the _slightest_ bit head over heels with Hyunjin already, despite not knowing the guy, any ounce of anger shown in his demeanor was demolished.

 

Jeongin leans back and sends Jisung a sly grin. “Well, you would know if you actually came to pick up your own books. Hyunjinie started working here about a week ago, and I think this is the first time I’ve seen him without Woojinie.” Jeongin pauses for a second. “I also think this is the first time I’ve seen him look so pissed off, so sorry guys, but you might be screwed.”

 

Jisung looks heartbroken right as Hyunjin comes back, and immediately points the fire extinguisher at the book and puts out the fire. He whistles. “ _Damn_ that book is burned up.” Hyunjin leans closer to inspect it, dropping a small pack of tissues onto Minho’s lap (Minho teases Hyunjin about going out of his way to grab some tissues for his bleeding later, to which Hyunjin scoffs and denies everything), picking up Minho’s pen from the table to prod at it. He tries to flip over the page only for it to start crumbling onto the pen.

 

Minho gives Jisung a look which signals for him to take the hand sanitizer out of Minho’s bag (because hey, if he has matches then he _probably_ didn’t forget his hand sanitizer) as Hyunjin leans back and looks at the group, crossing his arms as he gives each of them an analyzing look. “So, who wants to be the one to go explain this to me while I put the extinguisher back?”

 

None of them get the time to respond as Jisung throws the sanitizer at Minho, who grunts out a _thanks_ , and pulls Jeongin up. “Well, since you already know our little Inie here, then maybe _he_ should explain to you what happened.”

 

“Fine by me.” Hyunjin shrugs and walks away with Jeongin in tow, who gives Jisung a withering glare before he follows Hyunjin (Jeongin laughs when Minho asks him about it later, saying that he’ll get revenge on Jisung one day, which is _terrifying_ when coupled with his sharp gaze and mischievous personality).

 

It’s barely a second after they’re out of earshot when Jisung turns towards Minho. “Minho,” Jisung whispers desperately, “he’s _really_ cute and I’m _really_ gay.”

 

“Oh,” Minho responds without thinking, hissing a little when the sanitizer stings his hands, “mood.”

 

They both stare at each other before Jisung speaks up. “I’m actually polysexual.”

 

“Panromantic asexual here.”

 

“Nice.”

 

“Cool.” They’re both quiet for a second. “Jeongin never finds out about this.”

 

Jisung laughs and gives Minho a wide grin. “Oh, definitely not. If Inie finds out about how _this_ is how we came out to each other then we’ll never be able to live it down.”

 

“Yup,” Minho nods his head in agreement. He turns his head to look at his book on the table, pages burned with the aforementioned matches almost on the other side of the table. “Hey, think you can make copies of your notes and give them to me? Because, uh,” He lifts up his notebook by the cover and watches pieces of charred paper fall down, “I don’t think mine are very legible anymore.”

 

Jisung takes a moment to stare at the book before he reaches over and gingerly takes it into his hands. “Of course I can make copies, since this was sort of my fault.”

 

“Sort of?” Minho raises an eyebrow at him.  
  
“Listen, okay. It was a group effort. We _all_ helped almost set the library on fire.” Jisung sounds too cheerful for the sentence that he says, and laughs at the deadpan look that Minho sends him. “What! You almost knocked the book into the shelf! There’s no _way_ you can claim innocence to that!”

 

“There’d be nothing to knock into the shelf if you guys didn’t play with the matches, though!” Minho scolded.

 

“Yeah,” Jisung and Minho both flinch and turn to face Hyunjin, who’s looking at them with a bemused yet annoyed expression, “and there’d be nothing to _start_ the fire if you didn’t have matches in your bag in the first place.” He rolls his eyes. “Seriously, _why_ would you bring matches to the _library_ ? They’re not even _allowed_ in here.”

 

Minho pouts. “I didn’t think I’d take them out.”

 

“I-” Hyunjin shakes his head. He turns towards Jeongin. “Please make sure Minho doesn’t accidently sent anything else on fire.” He says before he walks away.

 

Jisung and Minho look at each other before they both look at Jeongin. “He knows my name?” Minho asks.

 

Jeongin takes a moment to look at both of them before shrugging. “Yeah, I told Hyunjinie your names.”

 

“Names?” Jisung asks meekly. Minho can relate™.

 

“Yeah?” Jeongin looks at him with furrowed brows. “Why?”

 

Jisung shakes his head. “Nothing, nothing.” He reaches into his bag and takes out his book. “Minho, since your book is broken, let’s study with mine.”

 

“It’s not _broken_ , it’s burned.”

 

“Oh, so it’s like you half the time?” Jeongin smirks.

 

“You brat!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry if minho accidentally like, almost slapping the book into the shelf seems shoehorned in ):
> 
> also like the class that they're studying for is physics because in different schools you can learn physics at different times so just assume that minho did chem first year and transferred into the same hs as jisung so now he takes physics


	2. Rip Jeongin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyunjin shakes his head. “Gosh, why are the pretty ones always the _stupid_ ones. What about your other friend, the one who looks like and endearing squirrel? What stupid things has _he_ done?”
> 
> “Not killed me and Minho yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeongin and Hyunjin's convo when Jisung sacrificed him to the devil

Most of the time, Jeongin loves his friends, really.

 

Sure, Minho can be a cold hearted princess who only ever seems to be there to make fun of everyone, but he’s also the kind of person who would threaten your bullies to get them to leave you alone (Minho says that he isn’t the one who did that, but Jisung tells him otherwise).

 

Jisung’s the kind of person who overthinks everything to the point of either not doing it or acting on impulse (both of which aren’t ideal, but not doing anything is less ideal than impulse more often than not so Jeongin will take what he can get and roll with it), while also encouraging everyone and anyone to do their absolute best and do what they want to do without fear (a through and through juxtaposition to everyone who knows him).

 

With all of that being said, though, Jeongin _really_ wants to throttle Jisung right now (note: he wants to throttle _Jisung_ and Jisung _only_ . Minho has nothing to do with Jeongin being offered up as bait while Jisung probably talks about how hot he thinks Hyunjin in front of the guy that Jeongin’s pretty sure he’s had a crush on for years), and by the looks of it Hyunjin just wants to throttle _someone_ , who will, hopefully, not be Jeongin.

 

“So,” Hyunjin starts off casually, leading them behind the library counter, “what happened, exactly?”

 

Jeongin nervously laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, you see, my friends Minho and Jisung have a test soon, and Minho’s mom kicked us out of his house so we came here to study. Minho took out his book and was looking for a pen, and-”

 

“ _Jeongin-_ ”

 

“I swear, I swear, I’m getting to the point! So Minho was looking for a pen in his bag, right? And so he starts taking out miscellaneous things and one of those things just so happens to be a thing of matches-” Jeongin stops when he sees Hyunjin raise his hand.  


“Who brings _matches_ to a place full of _flammable material_ ?” Hyunjin rubs a hand over his face. “You know what, it’s fine, it’s _fine_ . That corner is like, undetectable from any cameras anyway, so you guys won’t get into trouble since nothing got set on fire other than that idiot’s _notebook_ , surprisingly.”

 

Jeongin shrugs. “I mean, _technically_ he’s not the one who started the fire.”

 

“He’s the one who almost _spread_ it, though! And why would you bring _matches_ to a _library_ , of all places anyway!” Hyunjin runs a hand through his hair. “Can I get fired on my first week on the job and first time working by myself for not reporting this? Is that like, a thing that can happen?” Hyunjin looks at Jeongin. “What grades are they in, anyway?”

 

Jeongin shrugs again. “I doubt it. Woojin’s seen Minho accidently jump off of the balcony and almost spill water onto the computer systems while trying to break his fall, and that _was_ on camera, and not only was Woojin not fired for neglecting to report it, but Minho has also not been banned yet, so… yeah. Minho’s a sophomore and Jisung’s a freshman.”

 

Hyunjin looks like his soul left his body. “Minho is… the one with the notebook… who started slapping the fire with his jacket… and screamed that he wasn’t the one who started the fire…?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Hyunjin shakes his head. “Gosh, why are the pretty ones always the _stupid_ ones. What about your other friend, the one who looks like and endearing squirrel? What stupid things has _he_ done?”

 

“Not killed me and Minho yet.” Jeongin responds immediately, earning a laugh from Hyunjin. “And like, uh, me and him are sort of the ones who started the fire, because we were playing with the matches on the table to see if we could light one. I think Minho may have accidentally nudged his book into the flames, though, but I’m not to sure. Definitely was the one who almost knocked it into the shelf, though.”

 

“Mhm,” Hyunjin hums as he walks out from behind the counter, “so, basically, _you guys_ are the reason why Woojin made sure to tell me about all the dangers that people could get into in the library?”

 

“Pretty much,” Jeongin takes a pause, “well, actually, no.”

 

“Oh, really?” Hyunjin raises an eyebrow. “There’s something I’ve been warned about that you guys _didn’t_ cause?”

 

Jeongin nods. “Yeah. Trust me, we didn’t cause any of the cum stains by the table. I mean, Minho and Jisung _might_ have, but I _really_ doubt it, and besides-”

 

“Nope,” Hyunjin says, walking towards the table that Minho and Jisung were waiting for them at as he covers his ears with his hands, “nope, nope, nope. I don’t want to hear it. The less I hear about sex happening in the library the better it is for me and my sanity.”

 

“But Hyunjinie, you’re probably going to have to clean up the remains one day.” Jeongin supplies cheerfully, causing Hyunjin the groan.

 

“Yeah, but the further away that moment is, the better.”

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry if minho accidentally like, almost slapping the book into the shelf seems shoehorned in ):


End file.
